Wonder
by LadySeradeRETURNS
Summary: Hermione, 22, watches Sirius more and more these days. Finally, she feels that the time is right to find out what it's like...


_He's just so refined._

Hermione sat by herself across the room curled up in a deep plushy chair. Her legs were folded in front of her, a book lay open in her lap and with her chin low she couldn't help but watch Sirius from afar.

She took in every small detail about him. The way he crossed his legs as he leaned against the old red velvet sofa with his arms opened and stretched across the back. Looking like an inviting dark knight donned in high quality fabrics of intricate detail, his long brown velvet coat still touched the floor as it creased under his legs. Intricate silver threading was woven into the black vest he wore, on top of a maroon and black striped button up shirt where a tease of his tattoos could be seen high by his neck.

She sighed to herself in heavy thought, a few short moments away from dreaming.

_Does he ever notice me?_

His dark wavy hair touched the tops of his shoulders and he shook his head as he talked to free his sightlines. Slight age lines creased around his eyes leaving a trace of thirteen years more than she. Being submerged in a dark void of nothing for the last eight years did him fair justice by not aging him one more day than the one he left and by that, she smiled at the corner of her mouth.

_We've no more an age gap than Remus and Tonks._

Harry finally left the room to go and find Remus about finding whatever it was that Sirius needed and she was again, left alone with him.

"Hermione, you're awful quiet over there. Not one word about it?" he finally asked her. Whatever it was that Sirius needed that sent Harry out of the room had no interest in her.

It took her almost half a minute to realize that though she was staring at him, she hadn't registered the sound of his voice aimed at her or the fact that his grey eyes were meeting hers.

_Do it._

"Sorry, my mind was elsewhere," she said, closing the heavy book on her lap.

He smiled at her, amused by her choice of entertainment as he eyed the size of the book she was leaning over to put on the floor.

"I was only saying that I was surprised that you didn't offer your normal objection," Sirius baited as he watched her stand up off the chair. He imagined that she was just leaving the room to follow his godson, but instead watched as she went to the library doors and closed them together.

She turned around to face him, but she was casual enough to believe that she wasn't doing anything that was unusual. However, this particular rainy afternoon, she did.

"What is it?" he asked as she came over to where he was sitting and stood right in front of him.

She bit her lip once and then leaned over to lay a hand on his thigh, her fingers touching the rich brown velvet of his jacket. "You might think this odd of me," she started.

His eyes were defensively curious to what was so incredibly private that she had to shut the doors and he waited. Once she touched his thigh, he raised his eyebrows and his intrigue was enhanced.

"Go on," he asked deep and coy.

"But, as I was sitting over there...like I'm always sitting over there..."

Sirius slowly nodded for her to go on and stop stalling. He did not smile; he didn't even change his sitting position as he waited patiently.

"Sometimes I say some things and sometimes I think some thing's..."

"Yes...Hermione, what is it? Are you going to hex me? Because, that thing in the back garden was just an accident," he played it off very cool, trying to get her to finish. Her hand on his thigh was deeply distracting him, because she'd never stood so close to him on purpose that it was beginning to make him wonder.

She smiled and shook her head, letting her long brown hair wave around her face, "No, I'm not."

"Then, what is it? Why did you close the door?"

She raised the hand that sat on his thigh up to his cheek to finally touch the bristled chin that she'd secretly harbored a dangerous desire to feel. "I was starting to wonder what it was like," she swallowed, somewhat nervous. "To kiss you, Sirius."

Both eyebrows rose to their limits, unaware that she harbored any sort of attraction towards him and why, until now, had he never considered her. She was a woman, after all. A young woman, at that. A young woman he loved to have rows with. A woman, who was coming in closer on her own accord.

He inhaled a deep long breath and sighed with a slow shake of his head, as if he had no other answer, "Then, why don't you find out."

...and she did.


End file.
